By some means Ancient Egypt survives to this day, with its language and religion. How? What results?
Ancient Egypt survives to this day
- Thread starter Anthony Appleyard
- Start date
Well, this means they have to hold off the Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, British (am I forgetting anyone?). Of course, if you keep Ancient Egypt alive, you put at least the Arabs (and quite possibly the Romans and Macedonians) and everyone after into the null set, with different challenges for Egypt (the onslaught of the Armenian Empire?)
Dunash
Banned
At the time of the Exodus and the Ten Plagues, Ancient Egypt was laid so low and was so devastated that they aren't even mentioned in the Bible as configuring in their backdoor neighbour's history, Ancient Israel, for 400 years. The Egypt that reemerged c800 BCE was a pale shadow of its former pyramidal self.
Even if Egypt survived Alexander, the Romans, the Muslims, etc., and never abandoned their religion or language, I think there would still be a lot of changes. Religion doesn't stay unchanged over thousands of years, and neither does language. I doubt an Egyptian of 1000 BC would recognize much about our conjectural Egypt of 2000 AD....
NapoleonXIV
Banned
Egypt doesn't mention Israel much in its history either. Nor does it talk of the Ten plagues or Moses or even the Exodus for that matter. Egyptian history was awfully selective though, so that's to be expected. Problem is, except for the Bible, noone else does either.
Toynbee argues that Egyptian civilization is one of the world's main types and a good illustration of the fact that civililiations grow old and die. In its own sense it lasted over 2000 years and then lasted about a thousand more as a sort of autonomous possession of other people.
And it probably would have continued to do so if Antony and Cleopatra won at Actium. The Roman empire would have been much more Eastern oriented.
Maybe the taking of Italy and the West would be seen as just the loss of a backwater to an Empire based in Alexandria. Christianity rises but the Empire, still strong, keeps it from becoming the rabid force in Egypt that burned the last priests who still read the hieroglyphs. Instead, syncretic like its later Roman form, Christianity subsumes a lot of Egyptian practices. Certain angels are depicted as having the heads of wolves and cats, Imhotep becomes the earliest of the Church fathers. Cats become sacred (very important around 1346)
The next big hurdle would be Islam, can anybody help here?
Toynbee argues that Egyptian civilization is one of the world's main types and a good illustration of the fact that civililiations grow old and die. In its own sense it lasted over 2000 years and then lasted about a thousand more as a sort of autonomous possession of other people.
And it probably would have continued to do so if Antony and Cleopatra won at Actium. The Roman empire would have been much more Eastern oriented.
Maybe the taking of Italy and the West would be seen as just the loss of a backwater to an Empire based in Alexandria. Christianity rises but the Empire, still strong, keeps it from becoming the rabid force in Egypt that burned the last priests who still read the hieroglyphs. Instead, syncretic like its later Roman form, Christianity subsumes a lot of Egyptian practices. Certain angels are depicted as having the heads of wolves and cats, Imhotep becomes the earliest of the Church fathers. Cats become sacred (very important around 1346)
The next big hurdle would be Islam, can anybody help here?
WEll, the language in a sense does survive to this day. koptic is a fairly direct descendant of demotic Egyptian (though that means about the same degree of common ground that French and Latin have).
I don't think you could have 'the culture' and 'the language' survive - there wopuild be very massive changes in the intervening 2000 years, just as there were before (New Kingdom Egypt looks a lot like Middle Kingdom Egypt because it wants to, not because it still had the same culture base. Same reason many public buildings in the US and Europe use Greek column orders.) However....
If we nix the big monotheistic religions, we can posit a survival of the religion. even after 300-odd years of pretty nasty near-Apartheid Macedonian rule (did they teach you, too, that Cleopatra was an Egyptian pharaoh queen? Believe not a word) and the awful shock of Roman conquest, the worship of Isis and Serapis spread throughout the Roman world and the Caesars had temples built in their honour in the traditional Middle Kingdom style, complete with hieroglyphic inscriptions. If we can then remove the Romans and Alexanderfrom the mix...
After long, protracted civil wars, the Achaemenid Empire collapses around 300 BC. Former satraps from Lybia and Nubian kings fight a generation-long conflict over the fertile Nile valley, claiming pharaonic honours in their turn. Both parties adopt Egyptian symbols and forms of government.
In the course of the next 300 years, the Mediterranean is dominated by the city-based civilisations of Greater Greece, Hellenised Lydia, Syria, Carthage, and Italy. Lower Egypt, especially the Lybian-dominated Delta region, becomes a vibrant trade hub, attracting Greek, Carthaginian and Syrian settlers while the more conservative South claims to preserve 'true' Egyptian culture under its Nubian pharaohs. Two or three times, the entire kingdom is united, but usually trhe conflicts achieve little more than moving the border somewhere between the first cataract and the Dodecaschoenos.
At long last, the Celtic and Germanic peoples are integrated, adapted, or overrun the various parts of the European Mediterranean. The equivalent of the medieval age begins, though it looks little like the one in OTL. Egypt will variously become the prey of Persian, Greek, Central Asian or possibly even Arab invaders (though the Arabs, in the absence of the unifying force of Islam, would have no real reason to get that far). However, all of their rulers eventually adapt to the seductive pull of God-Kingship and wear the two crowns, or disperse like oppressive shadows lifted ain the course of time.
Eventually, a city-based, reasonably literate civilisation reasserts itself throughout the Med from Syria. More and more travellers from temples of Isis and Serapis, educated in libraries as far afield as Gaul and Italy, raised on the writrings of Plato, Mago and Ptah-Hotep, visit the sources of, as far as they know, the oldest civilisation in the world. Egypt's archives and temple libraries welcome them with open arms.
If you give this Europe/Western Asia a regular 600-odd years of history (by which I mean no Dark Ages, no new religions and no extinction events), you get a Koptic-speaking (well, kinda-Koptic speaking), Isis-worshipping Egypt whose architecture, religion, and outward forms of government refer back almost obsessively to the 'great days' of the Middle and New Kingdom. Think China. In fact, imagine a bureaucratic Mandarin class wearing pleated linen kilts (nobody else wears pleated linen kilts any more) and devoting a lifetime to the study of the Wisdom of Ptah-Hotep and the Chronicles of the Kings to tell you *exactly* how a proper society ought to be ordered.
Of course, once the industrial revolution happens they are screwed right royally...
I don't think you could have 'the culture' and 'the language' survive - there wopuild be very massive changes in the intervening 2000 years, just as there were before (New Kingdom Egypt looks a lot like Middle Kingdom Egypt because it wants to, not because it still had the same culture base. Same reason many public buildings in the US and Europe use Greek column orders.) However....
If we nix the big monotheistic religions, we can posit a survival of the religion. even after 300-odd years of pretty nasty near-Apartheid Macedonian rule (did they teach you, too, that Cleopatra was an Egyptian pharaoh queen? Believe not a word) and the awful shock of Roman conquest, the worship of Isis and Serapis spread throughout the Roman world and the Caesars had temples built in their honour in the traditional Middle Kingdom style, complete with hieroglyphic inscriptions. If we can then remove the Romans and Alexanderfrom the mix...
After long, protracted civil wars, the Achaemenid Empire collapses around 300 BC. Former satraps from Lybia and Nubian kings fight a generation-long conflict over the fertile Nile valley, claiming pharaonic honours in their turn. Both parties adopt Egyptian symbols and forms of government.
In the course of the next 300 years, the Mediterranean is dominated by the city-based civilisations of Greater Greece, Hellenised Lydia, Syria, Carthage, and Italy. Lower Egypt, especially the Lybian-dominated Delta region, becomes a vibrant trade hub, attracting Greek, Carthaginian and Syrian settlers while the more conservative South claims to preserve 'true' Egyptian culture under its Nubian pharaohs. Two or three times, the entire kingdom is united, but usually trhe conflicts achieve little more than moving the border somewhere between the first cataract and the Dodecaschoenos.
At long last, the Celtic and Germanic peoples are integrated, adapted, or overrun the various parts of the European Mediterranean. The equivalent of the medieval age begins, though it looks little like the one in OTL. Egypt will variously become the prey of Persian, Greek, Central Asian or possibly even Arab invaders (though the Arabs, in the absence of the unifying force of Islam, would have no real reason to get that far). However, all of their rulers eventually adapt to the seductive pull of God-Kingship and wear the two crowns, or disperse like oppressive shadows lifted ain the course of time.
Eventually, a city-based, reasonably literate civilisation reasserts itself throughout the Med from Syria. More and more travellers from temples of Isis and Serapis, educated in libraries as far afield as Gaul and Italy, raised on the writrings of Plato, Mago and Ptah-Hotep, visit the sources of, as far as they know, the oldest civilisation in the world. Egypt's archives and temple libraries welcome them with open arms.
If you give this Europe/Western Asia a regular 600-odd years of history (by which I mean no Dark Ages, no new religions and no extinction events), you get a Koptic-speaking (well, kinda-Koptic speaking), Isis-worshipping Egypt whose architecture, religion, and outward forms of government refer back almost obsessively to the 'great days' of the Middle and New Kingdom. Think China. In fact, imagine a bureaucratic Mandarin class wearing pleated linen kilts (nobody else wears pleated linen kilts any more) and devoting a lifetime to the study of the Wisdom of Ptah-Hotep and the Chronicles of the Kings to tell you *exactly* how a proper society ought to be ordered.
Of course, once the industrial revolution happens they are screwed right royally...
Dunash said:
Actually, there is a good argument to be made that what finally did the Egyptians in was that they simply ran out of gold. The Egyptian Empire was built on the power which having large gold reserves gave to Egypt. When the mines started to run dry, the society started to break down, the military got weaker, and the empire finally fell.
Egypt itself had several factors going for it which gave it the potential to be a great empire, much greater than it actually was. It had a large population, it was a large grain producer, it was in an excellent position for overseas trade. With a bit more luck and some better management, I think it could have survived.
I personally think that Saite Egypt (the last independent, native Egyptian dynasty, which fell to the Persians in 525 BC) could have been a POD for a longer-lasting Egypt. Here is a scenario based on this point of departure...
c. 600 BC...Pharoah Necho II sends a fleet of ships (hired from the Phoenicians) to circumnavigate Africa. Necho is able to renew contacts with Ophir...what would later become Zimbabwe in Southern Africa. (see the following link for arguments linking Ophir with Zimbabwe http://phoenicia.org/zimbabwe.html). The mines of Zimbabwe/Ophir were productive at that time, and have remained so up until the present day. Later in Necho's reign, the Egyptians also discover some new mines in Nubia. So the Egyptians are once again awash in gold, and are able to remain so.
Necho and his successors were also somewhat innovative militarily, at least for Egyptians. They used Greek mercenary troops, for example. So, lets say they use their new found wealth in gold to rebuild their military. They raise a large infantry force, mostly native but supplemented by mercenaries, which is armed, equipped, and trained as Greek Hoplites. This force is supplemented by a large force of Egyptian and Nubian archers. They abandon their chariots and adopt armored horse archers and lancers from the Assyrians and Babylonians. They also build a large navy and merchant fleet, based on Greek and Phoenician designs. The Saite Pharoahs do not attempt to expand into Asia, but instead focus on expansion southward into Africa, which they recognize as the source of their wealth. Necho and his successors conquer the Kingdoms of Kush and Axum (most of modern-day Sudan and Ethiopia). This gives the Egyptians ports on the Horn of Africa, much closer to the mines of Ophir, and puts them in a good position to trade with India and other exotic regions. Egypt grows wealthier still. Over the next few centuries, they expand and bring the entire coast of East Africa under their control, tightening their control over the gold of Ophir.
The Persians under Cambyses invade in 525 BC, and are crushed by the revamped Egyptian army. They try again in the reigns of Darius I and Xerxes (who are so occupied with Egypt that they never try to invade Greece. Xerxes's successor, Artaxerxes I, will be the first Persian ruler to shift his focus from Egypt to Greece), but are defeated again.
As a defensive measure, Pharoah Ahmosi IV orders the construction of a canal linking the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, with the Egyptian side to be fortified, thus severing the direct route of invasion from Asia. This is completed in 375 BC. Unintentionally, in so doing he also opens up a new trade route, and Egypt profits mightily by charging tolls on foreign ships which wish to use the new canal.
The Saite Pharoahs continue to maintain ties with Greece, and an interest in affairs there, especially affairs military. When Philip of Macedon introduces the Macedonian Phalanx and renders the old Hoplite system obsolete, Pharoah Psamtik IX does the same. Furthermore, he forges an alliance with Philip's son, Alexander, against the Persians. The Macedonians never attack Egypt, and Egyptian troops march with Alexander across Persia to the Indus. When the time comes to divide up the spoils, Psamtik claims the old Egyptian Asian empire in Palestine and Syria, and this is granted by Alexander. The Northern border of the Empire now sits on the Euphrates.
When Alexander dies, his empire is divided up among his generals, as in OTL (Ptolemy doesn't get Egypt, however, but ends up with a realm in Asia Minor instead). Over the next two centuries, Egypt competes for supremacy with the various Helenistic successor kingdoms. The Egyptian lands in Syria and Palestine become a battleground, and the fortunes of war sway first one way, then another. However, unlike the various successor kingdoms, Egypt has maintained a strong cavalry force of armored archers and lancers to supplement it's phalanx, and the Pharoahs are more than able to hold their own in these struggles.
Then they have to deal with Rome...is anyone interested enough that I continue?
Any way they could be more expansionist in North Africa? If I recall, Egypt only managed to hold the western part of the Middle East and hunks of Nubia at its greatest extent. Perhaps more growth along the Mediterranean coast to the west could help out.
Very interesting, robert. I don't think they'd view the canal trade as unintentional, I'm sure they would've realized the benefit while they were building it. Still, very good.
NapoleonXIV
Banned
Continue, please
I'd very much like to see how they deal with Rome and Medievalism
I'd very much like to see how they deal with Rome and Medievalism
The tsetse fly and the nagana pest trypanosome diaease that it carries, would put a limit to how far south anyone could use horses or camels.
robertp6165 said:I'm working on it...will probably post it tomorrow.
Here is the second installment of my Saite scenario...
EGYPT VERSUS ROME...264 BC to 200 AD
264 BC...Egypt has, over the centuries, formed close ties with Carthage. Carthage is a major trading partner of Egypt, and militarily, the Carthaginian and Egyptian fleets have, in cooperation (but not formal alliance), dominated the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, in the backwards land known as Italia, a new power has risen...Rome. War breaks out between Rome and Carthage, and after over 20 years of war Carthage is forced to surrender in 241 BC. The Saite Pharaohs of Egypt have watched these developments with keen interest, and they recognize the threat posed by the upstart republic of Rome. When in 235 BC Hamilcar Barca secretly approaches Egypt, seeking a
formal military alliance, Pharaoh Necho VIII accepts. Later, when Hamilcar dies in 228 BC, Egypt renews the alliance with his son, Hannibal.
Necho VIII has noted the Roman invention which gave them naval supremacy over the Carthaginians...the corvus. He has large complements of marines and archers added to the crews of his warships. He also has chest-high railings installed around the decks of his ships (to prevent the corvus from being dropped directly onto the deck, where it's iron spike can fasten the ships together). When war comes, as Necho knows it will, Egypt's ships will be ready.
Pharaoh Necho VIII dies in 223 BC, and is succeeded by Necho IX. In 218 BC, Hannibal precipitates the Second Punic War when he attacks the Roman client city of Saguntum. As in OTL, Hannibal leads his army across the Alps and invades Italy. The Egyptians honour their treaty commitments and send an invasion force by sea to Italy. The Egyptian fleet escorting the invasion
force is intercepted by that of Rome off Tarentum, and a naval battle occurs. Egyptian archers rain flaming arrows on the opposing Roman warships, setting many of them ablaze, and those which manage to get close enough to drop their corvuses find that they do not work due to the new railings installed on the Egyptian vessels. The Romans suffer a bloody defeat, and the Egyptians are able to land on Italian soil. Over the next three years, as Egypt controls the seas, the combined Egyptian and Carthaginian armies establish control over most of Italy. The Egyptians transport over a siege train in 216 BC, and Rome surrenders the following year. Hannibal wants to raze Rome to the ground, kill all the males and sell the women and children into slavery. However, his Egyptian allies persuade him to be more lenient...Pharaoh Necho has no desire to see Carthage’s only rival in the west eliminated. Rome is stripped of all her overseas territories (which are given to Carthage), and a crushing indemnity is imposed (shared by Egypt and Carthage). Carthage and Egypt are now the two most powerful states in the civilized world.
In the succeeding decades, of course, Rome nurses it’s hatred of Carthage and Egypt. Hannibal’s successors in Carthage are not vigilant, and Egypt’s eyes are turned eastward as it is again involved in border wars with the Seleucids and Ptolemies. And so, Rome is able to once again rebuild it’s military power, and it casts about for allies. In 150 BC, Rome signs treaties with Ptolemy VI of Asia Minor and Antiochus VI of the Seleucid Kingdom, and shortly afterward the three allied powers declare war on Carthage and Egypt. Since Egypt has it’s hands full defending against the combined Ptolemaic and Seleucid armies, it is not able to send much help to
Carthage. And unfortunately, Carthage has, at this time, no leader of the caliber of Hamilcar or Hannibal Barca to lead it’s war effort. Roman armies land in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, and over the course of five years defeat the Carthaginian forces there. Rome’s fleet defeats the Carthaginian navy off Sicily in 144 BC, and the Romans land an invasion force near Carthage
later that year. Carthage is placed under siege, and falls in 143 BC. The Romans are not disposed to be merciful, and they raze Carthage to the ground. The men are killed and the women and children sold into slavery. Carthage ceases to exist.
Meanwhile, Egypt has managed to hold off the Ptolemies and Seleucids. But it sees the war going ill for it’s ally, and realizes Carthage may not be in the game much longer. So in 144 BC it does two things. Pharaoh Rameses XVI makes an alliance with King Mithridates I of Parthia, bribing him to attack the Seleucids. He also bribes Ptolemy VII, who has just succeeded to the
kingship and who was never in favor of the alliance with Rome anyway, to make peace with Egypt in exchange for a large payment in gold and some minor land concessions along their mutual border. The Parthians sweep into Iran, and seize most of it as Egyptian armies press into Mesopotamia. Antiochus, desperate to protect his remaining lands from the Parthians, sues for peace with Egypt in 142 BC. A treaty is quickly signed, and Egypt redeploys to meet the Roman threat.
But the Romans do not come. Their attention is fully taken up with the problems of integrating their newly conquered territories into their empire, and when in 141 BC Pharaoh Rameses offers peace, Rome accepts. An uneasy quiet settles on the region.
For the next half-century, Rome turns it’s attention to it’s European neighbors. It fights wars in Gaul, and against Epirus and Macedon, incorporating these areas into it’s Empire by the year 100 BC. Greece loses it’s independence soon after Rome takes Macedon. During the same period,
the Parthians continue to expand in Asia. In a campaign lasting from 129 to 126 BC, King Artabanus II of Parthia invades and conquers the weakened Seleucid realm in Mesopotamia, killing King Demetrius II in the process and ending the Seleucid Dynasty. His successor, Mithridates II, threatens to attack Egypt’s Asian possessions, but (after being bought off by a
substantial bribe) decides to attack Armenia and the Ptolemaic kingdom instead. He invades and conquers Armenia in 120 BC, and then begins a series of wars with the Ptolemies. The Ptolemies appeal to Rome for aid, which is given. Roman legions join the Ptolemaic forces against the Parthians, but although they delay the fall of the the Ptolemaic kingdom, they do not prevent it. The Ptolemaic capital of Ephesus finally falls in 100 BC, and with it, the kingdom. It’s last king, Ptolemy X, is taken to Babylon, where he is flayed alive. But Queen Cleopatra Berenice and most of the rest of the Ptolemaic royal family escape to Rome, and this gives Rome an excuse to continue the war with Parthia. The conflict will go on, at various levels of intensity, for the next 300 years. Egypt sits on the fence throughout the conflict, supporting first one side and then the other (and sometimes both at once!)...it’s Pharoahs reason that as long as Rome and Parthia are at each other’s throats, they won’t have much time or energy to think about attacking
Egypt! And the strategy works well for a long time.
RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS 200 BC to 200 AD: CHRISTIANITY IS BORN
The Saite Pharaohs are, of course, believers in the old gods of Egypt, especially promoting the cults of Osiris and Isis. However, they are very lenient with the peoples in the lands they rule, they are sensitive to the religious feelings of their subject peoples, and they do not attempt to enforce
any sort of religious conformity. One place where this has significant effects is in the tiny province of Yehud, where the Jews have rebuilt their temple. The lenient Egyptian administration allows the Jews complete freedom of worship, and the Jews are loyal subjects of their Egyptian overlords. Thus, there is no Maccabean revolt in this timeline and no independent Jewish state.
However, as in OTL, the main religious life in the province is dominated by the Sadducees (the Temple Priests) and Pharisees (the rabbis). The Sadducees, as in OTL, are involved in politics, and are allowing commercial business to take place in the Temple (i.e. the moneychangers), which offends many of the more pious people. The Pharisees, who might have served as an
alternative, however, are obsessed with petty dietary laws and other minutia, and are seen as hypocrites, observing the form, but not the spirit, of the Law. As a result, many Jews become dissatisfied with their religion and start to follow various cults which look to the arrival of a promised “Messiah” who will restore the Jewish faith to purity.
In 4 BC, a boy named Yeshua is born in Bethlehem. He grows up in the village of Nazareth, where He learns the carpenter’s trade. At about the age of 30 He is called to the ministry, and he travels the land, performs miracles (such as converting water into wine, walking on the surface of the Sea of Galilee, feeding a vast multitude with a small number of loaves and fishes, healing the blind and the lame, and raising the dead) and preaches a faith based on brotherly love, and redemption by the mercy of God. He attracts a dedicated following of disciples who travel with Him. Although Yeshua never directly claims this, His followers come to believe that He is the promised Messiah. His followers spread the word that the Messiah has come...a claim that many Jews, especially among the Pharisees and Sadducees, consider blasphemous. In 33 A.D. Yeshua attends a Passover celebration in Jerusalem. He goes into the Temple, sees the commercial huckstering being allowed there, goes into a rage and attacks several of the vendors,
destroying their displays and overturning tables. The alarmed Sadducees call a meeting of the Sanhedrin, where they accuse Yeshua of blasphemy. Yeshua is arrested, brought to trial and condemned to death. He is stoned to death the next morning. Yeshua is buried in a tomb, from which He disappears 3 days later. His followers are soon claiming to have seen Yeshua, risen from the dead, and they immediately begin making converts. Persecution by the local Jewish authorities soon force most of these “Maschiachim,” as they are called (later, they will get the
name “Christian” as they evangelize in Greek-speaking areas), to leave Yehud. They begin evangelizing among the pagans in the surrounding lands and establishing congregations not only in the Egyptian Empire, but also in the Roman Empire and other nearby lands. By 200 AD, the religion is firmly rooted in many places.
Wow. Thats good. But Egypt's doing almost too well...
Of course, they have plenty of advantages to ensure their dominance...
Of course, they have plenty of advantages to ensure their dominance...